Various global or local communications networks (the Internet, the World Wide Web, local area networks and the like) offer a user a vast amount of information. The information includes a multitude of contextual topics, such as but not limited to, news and current affairs, maps, company information, financial information and resources, traffic information, games, and entertainment-related information. Users use a variety of client devices (desktop, laptop, notebook, smartphone, tablets, and the like) to have access to rich content (like images, audio, video, animation, and other multimedia content from such networks).
Generally speaking, a given user can access a resource on the communications network by two principle means. The given user can access a particular resource directly, either by typing an address of the resource (typically an URL or Universal Resource Locator, such as www.webpage.com) or by clicking a link in an e-mail or in another web resource. Alternatively, the given user may conduct a search using a search engine to locate a resource of interest. The latter is particularly suitable in those circumstances, where the given user knows a topic of interest, but does not know the exact address of the resource she is interested in.
There are numerous search engines available to the user. Some of them are considered to be general purpose search engines (such as Yandex™, Google™, Yahoo™, and the like). Others are considered to be vertical search engines—i.e., search engines dedicated to a particular topic of search—such as Momondo™ search engine dedicated to searching flights.
Irrespective of which search engine is used, the search engine is generally configured to receive a search query from a user, to perform a search and to return a ranked search result page (also referred to as search engine results page, or SERP) to the user. When the given user runs a web search using the search engine, he or she generally has two priorities. He or she wants the search engine to locate the most relevant results and he or she wants the results relatively quickly. To at least partially address these concerns, several attempts have been made to improve the design of the SERP in the aim of enabling the user to more easily and quickly obtain search results of interest.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US2009/0119278 discloses methods and systems for continual reorganization of ordered search results based on current user interaction. Responsive to each user interaction with search results to network locations returned by a search engine, a search result reorganizer predicts user interest in the search results from each dynamic user interaction. Responsive to each prediction of user interest while a user interacts with any of the search results, the search result reorganizer reorders the search results to reflect the user interest.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US2014/0149390 discloses a system and method for automatically providing relevant search results based on user behavior. Initial search results based on a query are displayed, enabling selection by a user of an item within the search results. Refined search results are then determined based on behavior of the user with respect to the initial search results.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,762,373 discloses a system for personalized search result ranking. The system determines a user's past search result selection activity and adjusts the ranking of current search results provided to the user based on the user's past search result selection activity.